The Hand-book of Artillery, for the Service of the United States, Army and Militia. With the Manual of Heavy Artillery, Including that of the New Iron Carriage"By Joseph Robert, Major, 4TH Regt. Art., U.S.A., and Colonel ed Penn. Art.Fifth Edition, Revised and Greatly Enlarged. New York: D. Van Nostrand, 192 Broadway, 1863.http://www.civilwarartillery.com/books/ ... ArtCarMach

How many kinds of wheels are employed for field carriages?Two: No. 1 for the 6-pdr. gun-carriage, the Caisson, the forge, the battery-wagon, and for the limbers of all field carriages. No.2 for the 24 and 32-pdr. Howitzer and the 12-pdr. Gun-carriages.In what respects are these wheels similar ?They are of the same form and height, and they fit on the same axle-tree arm. The height is 57 inches, and each wheel is composed of 14 spokes and 7 fellies.How do they differ?In the dimensions of their parts, and in strength and weight.What is the weight of these?No. 1, 180 lbs.; No. 2, 196 lbs.

and

The wheels of the carriage are of very subtle design. Their 14 spokes are dished slightly inward to make the wheels more “springy” on rough ground,

zulu`s 1000`s of em wrote:Probably, but I have seen pictures on the net of both 12 and 14 spoke wheels, so maybe a 16 spoke version exists too.

There may be exceptions but it appears to be that 14 spokeswas the "rule". I´ve also seen a contemporary pic of a gun with 12 spoked wheels, a 6pdr Napoleon but so far, not one Parrot with more or less than 14 spokes.

The knob on the cascabel seems to be on the sprue so you have to glue it on? I didn't notice the extra spokes but it does look very crowded there..I've stayed away from Strelets infantry sets and will stay away from their artillery sets, those figures are really poor.

I purchased some of the infantry sets. My thoughts with the frock coat US was to use a little green stuff and produce figures in great coats. Many of the poses are quite flat but I'll probably try and fix what I can and hide others in the middle of other figures. The biggest disappointment with the wheels is Strelets already has a 14 spoke wheel sculpted for the colonial British that they could have used in these sets, both for the Whitworth and this Parrot and I'm sure would have not been far out in size.http://www.strelets-r.com/Pages/Set.aspx?SetID=323&M=Z

BTW Traveller, I like a lot of the printed ACW figures you've been doing. If you ever decide to make any available let me know.

The only type wheel I knew of in connection with such spokes were on the Boer Wagons,and originally were from early Dutch design for heavy haulage wagons in S Africa, i have not ever seen them used for wheeling guns about.

Cast iron and wrought iron construction. The heavy wrought iron band overlaid the breech and reinforced it. This medieval style of construction was however very dangerous indeed.

The barrel front has 10 unique straight sides to it,and a machined thread can be clearly seen down the rest of the inside barrel. The incredible spin certainly punched the solid shot out through the front. However these guns quite often blew up when reaching near the 30 round shot average.. So I guess they were replaced by new guns well before reaching this dangerous stage? However some guns blew up after firing only 5 rounds. I can only guess that the well used gun barrels went back to the foundries for recycling? The heaviest gun used in the field were the Parrott 20 Pounders, with the 30 pounder guns being used in forts or aboard ships. BB